- Mar 20, 2004
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Well... I kind of wish I had something miraculous to share about my coming to Christ, but it was never a sudden epiphany, more of a gradual journey... which has not ended by a long shot.
Anyway... I grew up pseudo-Christian; my dad's basically Protestant (way anti-Catholic, though, and a bit of an angry man) and my mom is an ex-Christian... she had faith when I was younger, but it didn't sit well with her and she abandoned Christ. (I'm not going to question whether she was saved to begin with, because that's a whole different topic.)
Basically, I'd had exposure to Christian ideas and values and Christ Himself throughout most of my life, but I didn't really get whacked in the head with it until summer after second grade... I was sort of one of the less advantaged kids, so the social worker at school managed to wangle arrangements for me to go to some kind of week-long summer camp. I didn't know until I got there (and indeed had been there for a while) that it was actually a Christian camp run by the Salvation Army-- Camp Kuratli in Oregon, to be exact. And of course sometime in the middle of it all, us kids got the Gospel Message and got the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ into our hearts, and like all the rest of them I did, not really understanding the true significance of my actions.
After that, I went through a period of trying to read all the Bible stuff I could get (I had ALWAYS been fascinated with the End Times, just like my dad) and praying and, admittedly, feeling self-righteous and arrogant. That stage didn't last long, though, and by the time middle school rolled around I was about as close to atheist as I would ever get, and my viewpoints on certain subjects were... scary. Yet I claimed to be a Christian the whole time.
By the end of my disastrous 8th grade year, I fully realized that I was, in fact, NOT a Christian. (Or if I was, I was sure doing a yucky job of it!) I'd flunked the heck out of 8th grade, spent that entire summer making it up so I could go to high school on time... which I did, and barely under the wire.
I got into 9th grade on time, started going to school... a bunch of the friends I'd made were Christian, but that didn't really affect me much. But first, a note about how our campus was set up-- this was critical! Basically, there were two seperate buildings, a freshman campus (the really old part of the high school) and the main campus where the upperclassmen and all the elective classes were. Every Thursday, a bunch of people from a local church would stand there and hand out tracts during lunchtime, and I would stop by and oftentimes spend the entirety of lunch just yapping with them. I REALLY didn't want to go to Hell, but at the same time I was afraid to jump. It took me several months to work up the courage, and finally I did. They prayed with me right there on the street.
However, I didn't actually start going to church until a year later when my dad and stepmom moved across town and much closer to a church-- 2 blocks away, several of my friends went there and the people were just super-nice! The next year I continued chatting with the same crowd of street evangelists, and this time discussion came around to the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.
From there on, though, things got weird (I pray in tongues VERY occasionally because it's too controversial and discernment is NOT one of my gifts) and I haven't really resolved things since... right now, I'm just trying to find where I belong, and lately I've been checking out the Catholic Church of all places. Iused to be heavily anti-Catholic, but that's changed. Jack Chick is no longer my only source of information about Catholicism.
There are MANY days when I have uncertainties about whether I'm really Christian or not... sometimes it helps to remember my baptism on March 9, 2003. I continually search for where I belong, and as I slowly find a direction I'll continue to add to this testimony.
Anyway... I grew up pseudo-Christian; my dad's basically Protestant (way anti-Catholic, though, and a bit of an angry man) and my mom is an ex-Christian... she had faith when I was younger, but it didn't sit well with her and she abandoned Christ. (I'm not going to question whether she was saved to begin with, because that's a whole different topic.)
Basically, I'd had exposure to Christian ideas and values and Christ Himself throughout most of my life, but I didn't really get whacked in the head with it until summer after second grade... I was sort of one of the less advantaged kids, so the social worker at school managed to wangle arrangements for me to go to some kind of week-long summer camp. I didn't know until I got there (and indeed had been there for a while) that it was actually a Christian camp run by the Salvation Army-- Camp Kuratli in Oregon, to be exact. And of course sometime in the middle of it all, us kids got the Gospel Message and got the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ into our hearts, and like all the rest of them I did, not really understanding the true significance of my actions.
After that, I went through a period of trying to read all the Bible stuff I could get (I had ALWAYS been fascinated with the End Times, just like my dad) and praying and, admittedly, feeling self-righteous and arrogant. That stage didn't last long, though, and by the time middle school rolled around I was about as close to atheist as I would ever get, and my viewpoints on certain subjects were... scary. Yet I claimed to be a Christian the whole time.
By the end of my disastrous 8th grade year, I fully realized that I was, in fact, NOT a Christian. (Or if I was, I was sure doing a yucky job of it!) I'd flunked the heck out of 8th grade, spent that entire summer making it up so I could go to high school on time... which I did, and barely under the wire.
I got into 9th grade on time, started going to school... a bunch of the friends I'd made were Christian, but that didn't really affect me much. But first, a note about how our campus was set up-- this was critical! Basically, there were two seperate buildings, a freshman campus (the really old part of the high school) and the main campus where the upperclassmen and all the elective classes were. Every Thursday, a bunch of people from a local church would stand there and hand out tracts during lunchtime, and I would stop by and oftentimes spend the entirety of lunch just yapping with them. I REALLY didn't want to go to Hell, but at the same time I was afraid to jump. It took me several months to work up the courage, and finally I did. They prayed with me right there on the street.
However, I didn't actually start going to church until a year later when my dad and stepmom moved across town and much closer to a church-- 2 blocks away, several of my friends went there and the people were just super-nice! The next year I continued chatting with the same crowd of street evangelists, and this time discussion came around to the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.
From there on, though, things got weird (I pray in tongues VERY occasionally because it's too controversial and discernment is NOT one of my gifts) and I haven't really resolved things since... right now, I'm just trying to find where I belong, and lately I've been checking out the Catholic Church of all places. Iused to be heavily anti-Catholic, but that's changed. Jack Chick is no longer my only source of information about Catholicism.
There are MANY days when I have uncertainties about whether I'm really Christian or not... sometimes it helps to remember my baptism on March 9, 2003. I continually search for where I belong, and as I slowly find a direction I'll continue to add to this testimony.
